The rapid rate of evolution of information systems is often constrained at the point of fielded units, by the investment in previous generations of equipment. An additional complicating factor is the lack of uniformity among various vendors with respect to such items as specific functionality, size and appearance of their various products, including sub-assemblies. In spite of the efforts of industry and trade associations, a wide variety of configurations typically exist for any given functionality desired to be incorporated into a new or existing information system.
One attempt at minimizing the effect of such variation among products, manufacturers, and technology evolution was the modularization architecture implemented in numerous information systems. By limiting or placing certain functionality of any given system in a subassembly with a preferred interface scheme, evolution as well as technological advantage can be gained over proprietary systems of unique design.
In a perfect world, strict adherence to such design criteria would eliminate all compatibility problems for a given type signal to be transmitted between a back-plane containing a communication bus and a given sub-assembly. However, in addition to the challenges of maintaining configuration control over the interface functionality between various sub-assemblies with respect to a given communication bus in the real world, more than one bus is often coupled to each sub-assembly thereby further complicating interface issues. Additionally, manufacturers not knowing of specific interfaces, or unwilling to abide by such design limitations, can sometimes gain a commanding market position with respect to their product.
Accordingly, a system for reconfiguring the interface between the back-plane having one or more bus structures and each sub-assembly or module is needed to provide greater flexibility in fielding newly designed components.